'9/11 families are furious': MBS pressed hard in Oval Office, his response

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman returned to American soil for the first time since 2018, and walked straight into a barrage of tough questions. After a red-carpet welcome, his Oval Office meeting with US President Donald Trump began with warm handshakes and talk of F-35 jets and trillion-dollar investments. But the tone shifted the moment reporters pressed him on the darkest chapters of US-Saudi relations.

ABC News' Mary Bruce didn’t mince words. "9/11 families are furious that you’re here in the Oval Office," she told the Crown Prince.

Bin Salman, seated beside Trump, said he felt "pain about the families of 9/11 in America". He claimed the terror attacks masterminded by Osama bin Laden were meant to rupture Washington’s ties with Riyadh.

"Based on CIA documents, Osama bin Laden used Saudi people in that event for one main purpose, to destroy the American-Saudi relation. That's the purpose of 9/11," he said. "So whoever’s buying that, they are helping Osama bin Laden’s purpose of destroying this relation. He knows that strong relation between America and Saudi Arabia, it's bad for extremism, for terrorism."

Nearly 3,000 people died when 19 hijackers, of whom 15 were Saudi citizens, commandeered four planes on September 11, 2001.

But the Crown Prince avoided the legal fight now underway in a US court, where a federal judge ruled earlier this year that Saudi Arabia must stand trial over allegations tied to the attacks.

If the 9/11 exchange was tense, what preceded it was even more charged. When Bruce asked about the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, Trump cut in sharply.

In front of his "very good friend", the President snapped at the reporter, calling her a “terrible person” and suggesting ABC News should lose its broadcasting licence for being “fake news”.

“He knew nothing about it. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that,” Trump said in a stunning defence of the Crown Prince.

Then came the line that sucked the air out of the room.

“You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happened,” Trump said of Khashoggi’s murder, seemingly implying that the journalist deserved his grisly fate.

The CIA had concluded that bin Salman ordered the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi, a known critic of his regime, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Crown Prince maintains he had nothing to do with the murder.

He, however, said Saudi Arabia "did all the right steps" to investigate the killing and ensure “it doesn't happen again”.

“It’s painful and it’s a huge mistake,” he added.

For bin Salman, the day was meant to showcase renewed alignment with Washington. But the Oval Office exchange showed that the ghosts of 9/11 and Khashoggi continue to haunt him.

- Ends